


Too Close

by diamondgore



Category: All New X-Men (Comics), X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Gen, Heart-to-Heart, angst but make it lonely, time displaced bullshit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-26 12:18:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19005658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diamondgore/pseuds/diamondgore
Summary: Warren finally gets a moment with himself.





	Too Close

**Author's Note:**

> This was really hard to write actually? I hope it's clear enough to read, since I'm not sure it makes sense. 
> 
> It was just something at the back of my head, I've been wanting to get out.

“So you kept this place, huh?” Warren walks around in the halls of the all too familiar Worthington manor. The halls are covered in paintings of former family members, and beautiful hanging sculptures. There are also bronze statues spaced out long the path, beautiful tragic women and men with fabric dripping on them. 

 

“What do you expect me to do? Sell our family home?” The older, more mature version of Warren walks behind him. He chuckles as he watches his younger self approach the paintings, especially the ones of his mom and dad. His wings, despite being flame, drop. He looks up at the large paintings of Warren Jr. & Kathryn, and feels so small again. That pang of loneliness hits him again in his chest. 

 

“You didn’t get one done of yourself?” He asks, looking around noticing there isn’t one picture of Warren on the wall, well at least none of his older self. The last one of him was the one of him, his grandfather and his father. Warren was only twelve when that was painted, even his younger counterpart knows that memory well. 

 

The itchy dress, and almost nauseating smell of the oil paints. He remembers his grandfather holding him straight and asking his son if he’d consider having a boy so that he’d have a proper heir to the fortune. The memory is poison to the both of them. Neither of them acknowledge it, and they just continue on.

 

“No, there’s no need to.” Warren walks towards his younger self, and stands behind him. “I don’t plan to continue the family line.” He places his hand gently on his shoulder. It feels weird trying to comfort himself. He’d never thought he’d be in this situation. “I don’t plan to have any kids.” 

 

“Are you sure? We love those little babbling idiots.” The hand on his shoulder feels good. The past three years have been insanity, and fights, and blood. He hasn’t had enough time with his older self ; most of it was spent playing scrabble with Angel, who knew a lot of words for someone who knew very little about the world. He had to get Hank on as a judge to make sure Angel wasn’t messing with him. 

 

“It’s not that I don’t like them,” Warren begins and then leaves the main hall and into the living room, “it just doesn’t make sense to bring them into this world.” 

 

Warren walks behind his older counterpart and into the main living room. Everything is covered in dust, and covered in cloth. It was clear that Warren hadn’t lived here in the longest time, and that he didn’t care for the manor the way that he used to. It almost makes his heart drop how in such little time he stopped caring about the house he lived in. 

 

“So where do you live now?” He changes the subject as he watches Warren examines old photos he hasn’t seen in over twenty years. It’s definitely weird to be back in the manor. He hasn’t spent time here since his mother’s death. 

 

“I have an apartment in Manhattan. I share it with Bets, I haven’t been there in a little while either.” 

 

“So where have you been living recently?” 

 

“Couch-surfing between Bobby and Hank while in New York. Otherwise I’ve been in L.A. with a girlfriend.” There’s something incredibly sad about his statement. Neither of them liked the uncertainty of loneliness. It wasn’t a fear that developed as he got older, it was something profound from their youth. 

 

“We don’t like being alone.” Baby Warren points out, as he runs his hand over the dusty covers of one of the antique tables. “Who’s the girlfriend?” 

 

“Some girl.” Warren doesn’t like referring to her as just that. “She’s a jazz pianist.” 

 

“I thought we weren’t about the mindless dating thing.” 

 

“It’s casual, between me and her. She knows it, I know it. She’s just comfortable right now.” Warren shrugs. He likes the girl, she’s a comfortable intermediate right now between waiting for Betsy and thinking about he was going to spend the rest of his life alone. “We’re allowed to have casual things.” 

 

“What’s her name?”   

 

“Xiomara.” He answers, “We met at a party run by mutants.” 

 

“Mutie-chaser?” 

 

“Mutant.” Warren looks through the large bookcase in the room, he picks out a large photo album. “It’s honestly amazing, seeing her fight.” That puts the pin in their conversation, his flat tone and sigh. 

 

Baby Warren doesn’t ask any more questions. He wants her to be a surprise when he eventually sees her. He wants to feel the chemistry between them without it being retold by Warren. 

 

Warren sits on one of the couches and then taps the seat next to him. A few particles of dust leave the couch, and baby Warren immediately regrets wearing the all white number. He folds his wings so that the cosmic flames won’t burn anything down. Warren opens up the album and begins to flip through to what he had called ‘The Candy Southern’ years. Years that he knew his younger self hasn’t experienced yet. 

 

“This is what I wanted to show you,” Warren says and shows him pictures of the original team out on a beach day in the Hamptons. “I know everyone’s been telling you stuff about how your future sucks, but it’s not that bad.” 

 

He flips a page, and there’s a picture of Warren and Candy at a party. It was one of Southern fundraisers for children hospitals. Warren was draped over Candy, with his face hidden in her neck, obviously he was picture shy. There was a time after he had sprouted his wings where he had hated being seen by the public. Candy eventually bought him out of that shell. 

 

“We dated Candy?” 

 

“For four years. They were some of the best of my life.” He sees baby Warren’s ears turn red. He realizes that this was the time he was supposed to be with Candy, loving her and being happy. This was when he was supposed to found The Champions and join the Defenders. He isn’t supposed to be told his memories like this. 

 

“Did we fall out?” He asks softly. 

 

“I shouldn’t ruin it for you.”  

 

Warren knows that means that she died. He frowns and traces the picture with his fingers. He doesn’t like knowing that Candy dies. He hopes she wasn’t murdered, or at the very least died peacefully. 

 

The album gets pulled away from him by his adult self, fast enough to cause a paper cut. He puts his finger in his mouth. 

 

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have told you that.”

 

“I would’ve gone looking for her, I went looking for Betsy when I learned we used to be lovers. I would’ve found out anyway.” There’s a bitterness to his voice, but he can’t quite place what he’s bitter about. They don’t talk for a few minutes, and just stare at the ground. Warren’s always going to be curious for the truth, he would look everywhere to find it.

 

“Tell me, do we ever get to be happy?” Every time he sees Warren, it’s not a good time. Warren’s hurt, his memories are wiped, he’s blue, he’s got metal wings and red eyes. It seems like there was nothing he could look forward to. At the very least Jean and Scott get married, Bobby becomes a respected X-Man, and Hank gets a Nobel prize. At best, all Warren got was new wings, and Baby Warren doesn’t want to know what happened for him to get them. 

 

“Our happiness is equal to our suffering, I like to think.” Warren shifts his gaze to the book. “ I know what you’re thinking. How come they’re all happy but we’re not? They’ve all suffered more than us.”

 

That’s how Warren justifies it. Jean becomes Phoenix, eats a planet. Scott becomes hated by everyone and even his own peers, dies of the M-Pox virus. Hank becomes a furry blue monster, keeps getting sick. Bobby gets infected with the Death Seed, he almost kills the planet. And what had Warren done? Nothing compared to that. At the very best he’s just lost his wings and girlfriend. 

 

They all suffered, and he is never going to, in his eyes. Warren leaves out the part about how all of his friends work on themselves. He never had any introspection beyond realizing how everything was out of his hand. He would always be Death, and he would always be Archangel. 

 

“Maybe we don’t need to suffer to be happy.” Baby Warren stretches out his hand and puts it on Warren’s wing. “Your girlfriend, do you think she might want to settle down? Or that we’d ever want to go back to Betsy or Jean?”

 

“Really ambitious of you to throw Jean into the mix.” Warren chuckles awkwardly, “We don’t need a family and babies to keep make us happy.”

 

“But you’re alone.” He replies, and then pets the fluffy white plumage. “Warren, I know other people don’t see it, but we’re alone. We can’t survive off of self-isolation. I--no, we, barely made it through high school I thought I would die of loneliness!” 

 

He gets up and then points around the room, twirling on his foot. “This house hasn’t been empty in centuries and you’re letting it collect dust. The manor isn’t a bad place!” 

 

“Warren, I don’t think—“ 

 

“No! We’re alone! I don’t like being alone and you can go to hell if you’re going to try to convince me that this is okay!” Little Warren is yelling, adult Warren isn’t surprised. He can see through Warren’s vulnerability, and how his loneliness. “Stop acting like you’re a martyr! We’re allowed to feel things! We don’t have to be fucking content with what life throws at us!”

 

Baby Warren is right, maybe he wasn’t trying his hardest to live his best life. But for the most part, it wasn’t like Warren was trying to live at all. 

 

“You don’t have to be angry with me. I didn’t choose to do this.” 

 

“You did, we did! You stopped living out for fear that you might get hurt!” He points and accusatory finger at Warren. “This life is made from our choices, that’s why I have these flame damn wings! We can’t just be okay because it's what's written for us, we can be happy. Who cares if you haven’t suffered enough!”

 

Warren looks at his feet again, his cheeks are burning red with embarrassment. He can’t believe he’s being yelled at by his time-displaced self. Warren can hear his younger self breathe harder and harder. But he can’t really bring himself to say anything.

 

“Life isn’t a scale, we don’t have to get hurt so that we can be rewarded with happiness.”

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr [@diamondgore](http://diamondgore.tumblr.com)!


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